With an increasing proportion of migration and mobility field studies being conducted by migrants and members of ethnic minorities in ‘home’ contexts, questions regarding insider/outsider positionings and the emergent implications of insiderness inevitably arise and require critical attention. Insider positionings offer multiple advantages, while also presenting diverse challenges to those who embark on this research path. This international collection provides a much-needed scholarly insight into the various challenges, possibilities, and implications of ‘insider research’ within migration studies.
The volume analyses key methodological, ethical and epistemological challenges faced by migration researchers who, in diverse ways, identify personally with the research topic and/or their participants. Drawing together the latest anthropological and sociological research on international migration and mobility, the authors present diverse case studies that may address one or more of the following themes:
1. multiple dimensions of insiderness
2. diverse approaches to the construction and claim to insider/outsider positionings
3. politics of being an insider in the research field
4. challenges of conducting research in ‘home’ contexts
5. limitations and advantages of insider methods in the study of migration, mobility, identities and belonging
6. ethical considerations in conducting insider research
7. issues of auto-ethnography in the research endeavour
8. questions of power and authority in insider research
9. the role of research participants in defining insider positions
10. emotional connections and obligations toward participants
11. dealing with challenges or denials to the researcher’s claim to insiderness
12. disputed meanings of ‘home’ and the ways ‘home’ is challenged and redefined during field-research

We are looking for chapter proposals that explore themes of insiderness and outsiderness within the migration and mobility research field.

Interested authors are invited to submit abstracts/chapter proposals (approx. 200 words) and a biographical sketch by 20 December 2011. The abstract should include where the case study (if the chapter presents one) was conducted – including information on the number of participants involved in any empirical research. Notification of acceptance will be sent in January 2012.

Final submissions of no more than 7,000 words (including notes and references) must be submitted by 30 April 2012.